[Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio has won the 2012 Liberty Inspiration Award, Followed by Ron Paul, Tom Woods and Antonio Buehler]

super late but congrats!!! 

[eating morality]

 

"That and the fact that animal products are poisonous to humans pretty much seals the deal."

How do you account for Inuits and similar cultures who consume copious amounts of fatty animal meat? What about the scientists who have gone and lived with them, consumed their traditional diets, and manage to have all of their nutritional needs met?

You may be confusing overly processed, cooked, hormone-added, lean meats with the fresh and fatty meat that has sustained robust individuals for centuries.

 

sounds self explainatory to me... 

an inuit: A member of a group of Eskimoan peoples inhabiting the Arctic from northern Alaska eastward to eastern Greenland, particularly those of Canada. ( right from the online dictionary)

One only has to only think about it for a few moments to see that the artic/northern alaska/canada/greenland are very very cold places. they have a good reason for eating meat. simply for the fact that finding plants are very sparse within those areas. also, the fatter you are, the more heat you tend to hold and being in a cold climate like that.. I'd say thats an adventage. 

the near opposite would be being in the "garden of eden" without any animals.

[eating morality]

 

As to the issues raised by the OP, the question is what constitutes the rules we use to assign moral status? When we answer this we can see if the same rules are relivant to non-human animals.

Eating is also in general morally neutral, that is unless you are biting someones living ear off for your supper. In contrast, for example, consuming some road kill is morally neutral assuming you did not yourself kill the animal concerned but instead just happened upon it.

Morality means taking the interests of other into consideration. This requires the thing of moral concern to have interests (non-living objects fail this test) and to be an "other" that is a sentient being aware of itself (many non-human animals pass this test, plants do not).

The above rules work for humans as below.

foetus - non-sentient, no moral status

live human cancer cells in a petri dish - "human" but non-sentient, no moral status

human neurons alive in a petri dish - human non-sentient, but like a plant reacts to environmental stimuli, no moral status

living human with insignificant brain function (vegetative state) - alive, human but non-sentient, no moral status

new born human child  to adult and other than above - sentient, has moral status

So I submit that the criteria for moral status are sentience (meaning self awareness), and this applies to many other animals but not to plants, and probably not to insects either.

One can also consider that non-human animals homestead their body just as we do ours and are therefore the only legitimate owners of their being.

 

 

The case between road kill that someone for the most part hit on accident and eating meat that has been put their for your consumption is two different things.  Are you suggesting that eating the roadkill is the same as eating meat from the supermarket? if so, why?

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to experience subjectivity. from wikipedia... 

sen·tience

1. The quality or state of being sentient; consciousness.

2. Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought. 

 

from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sentience

so in that case sentinence is the ability to feel or perceive or be conscious. 

A newborn baby can feel so it is indeed sentinent. However, obviously a newborn anything can pretty much feel also so... that newborn sheep is sentinent just as much as that newborn human is also. 

 

Do you not think that if you pinched a newborn it wouldn't cry or if you hit a newborn sheep it wouldn't try to run away from getting hit again? Of course it would. The newborn sheep has a nervous system just like we do. If it didn't then we can state its not sentinent.

 

[eating morality]

 

 

 

With all the caveats up front that I have a great fondness for animals. I rarely eat meat these days as I have embarked on a vegan diet myself of recent months. I have drifted towards this diet more out of good health than for ethical reasons. Although the mistreatment of animals is something I personally do not like.

However, humans can negotiate with each other in complex ways we can never do with animals. Animals may well experience pain and whilst different species may vary, it's difficult to know whether animals understand the causes of pain. Humans are unique in their ability to understand that they will eventually die one day. This is not the case for animals.

Trying to attach morality to animals who are unable to share or even understand that morality back is the most obvious conundrum facing any philosopher trying to assert universal ethics towards animals. We have a very unique relationship with each other, insofar as we have the ability to communicate and have empathy for each other and that empathy is reciprocal and well understood.

Therefore choosing a diet is not a moral choice, it is a subjective one. Agreed that someone’s choice to eat meat may make for unpleasant company for some vegans who find the idea abhorrent. This may appear to be a moral conclusion they are making of the meat eater and indeed they may even suggest it is one. But it really isn't in the 'objective' sense of the word. They are free of course to disassociate from meat eaters if they so desire.

Anecdotally mind, I have noticed that as I've developed my empathy for myself and others that I began to experience empathy for animals. Whereas in the past I never gave animals much interest or any harm either. I now consider (in part) my relationship with animals as emblematic of my relationships with other people. However, that is an entirely subjective and personal conclusion I have come to, which may have no bearing on how others experience it.

 

 

we still have the essential question that must be asked. Is it truly difficult to know if animals can understand the causes of pain? Sure, they might not know if they will eventually die but they might know that if they have seen death of a parent or something like that. For example, the only way we know that we will die is because others have died before us right? Would one think he will die if he never seen anything die?  

 

we can't communicate with an animal in the correct manner to find out if it has empathy for each other therefore we can eat that said animal due to it becoming subjective is highly flawed thinking. It's basically saying that if one can't communicate with their young, they have a subjective choice in eating that said animal. Need I give the example of a baby and its parents deciding on eating that child because the parents don't have the ability to communicate with the baby within the correct manner? Of course not. There are many examples within the animal kingdom itself where this falls flat on its face and one can observe all sorts of animals to see that your logic is flawed. 

 

 

The only rational excuse for eating meat is that we are a carnivorous species. Animals eat other animals, insects and some will eat a human if the situation presents itself. Thus, there is no moral consideration to be made, biologically speaking. Since we are capable of empathy, we tend toward anthropomorphising creatures that react to sensations in a similar manner to us. For instance, most people won't kick a dog but they will not think twice about stepping on a bug. There are a number of reasons for this but mostly (imo) it is because bugs don't express themselves in a similar manner to humans. We can't empathize with a cockroach because there is little of nothing similar between them and us.

 

All that said, I do empathize with animals and even with insects. As for the insects, I'm mostly concerned with the fact that they are a part of our ecosystem and as such they perform a much needed function. For that reason, I don't kill any insects unless not doing so could endanger my family. i.e., cockroaches carry disease, black widow spiders can cause painful bites, et al. As anumals go, I'm a meat eater and have no interest in changing my diet, although I have cut down my consumption of meat because we simply don't need as much meat as we have available to us. So for me, its a dietary consideration and not an empathy situation. Although, I do make it a point to purchase meats that are raised and slaughtered in the most humane manners possible. I won't touch veal or any other meat that's produced in a clearly inhumane manner. However, the truth of the matter is that to the lamb, being skinned alive by a butcher isn't any different than being chased down by a group of wolves and eaten alive right there on the spot. In both cases, it is suffering pain and it is being killed.

 

If the wolves aren't being immoral, how am I? I'm not. I just choose to treat animals with as much respect as possible while still living my life like the animal that I am.

 

 

That isn't rational simply because we aren't a carnvorous species. Ever ate anything besides meat? I'm sure you have even if we ate mac donalds or seasoned a steak. Meat doesn't taste very good without any type of herbs or spices on it to begin with so....  

[eating morality]

I have went though a thread about eating meat and that some people justified eating meat due to the fact that those said animals ( cows for example) don't display emotions and therefore are unable to know whats happening to them. However upon further research that obviously isn't the case as all animals have a nervous system and therefore are able to feel pain. Does one not think that if you placed a cow on a bunch of hot coals it would NOT try to get off of them? Of course it would. it feels pain just as we do. This test can be expanded to all animals...

Now this essentially makes us all vegans at this point. However, we have another issue. Some plants within the plant kingdom have developed defenses to animals. We have drugs such as marijuana that if one eats it, they become high. One could say the plant does this because it wants us to eat it however that can't be the case. I doubt poision ivy "thinks" that way otherwise it wouldn't evolve to the point of having defenses that makes it poisous in the first place right? 

 

now we are left in the situation of picking certain fruits and vegetables that have not evolved to the point of having defenses. If the case is to eat plants that are defenseless then does that rule apply to animals too or just plants? This is where I have a hard time understanding how it is moral to eat plants or animals. 

 

 this where the logic of self perservation comes into play so one thinks that they must eat something to survive... this is why some people are vegans mainly because they believe that killing a defenseless plant ( lettuce for example) would be less harmful to the plant than to the animal? In that case then I understand the reasoning but is there another logical and rational reason I missed?